Thursday, July 26, 2007

While the situation for the cyclism is gettin worst and worst (yesterday Rasmussen, the leader of the Tour de France, was kicked out from his team, one other racer was arrested for doping and the French press claim the Tour is dead), other sports have no reason to be happy.

NBA: even if David Stern try to minimise the story, to have a referee who admit to put money of the matches he had to run and is involved with the mob, well this is a real mess.Tim Donaghy undermined the legacy of the NBA. How many match final results were affected by the referee? Are we sure that he is the only one? No other referee, no other players were involved?

F1: in the meantime, in Paris, the International Federation is helding a trial against Mercedes McLaren team. The team is accused to have spied the Ferrari team. Lot of documents proving this story have been found at the house of one top engineer of the McLaren team. The team could be excluded by the World Championship with huge economic damage and image damage for McLaren and Mercedes. The main sponsor is Vodafone.

As we all can see, the sport world is under a big threat.

Should we expect a decrease of the audience for the sports involved in these events?In your position of consultant and marketing men and women, what would you suggest to a client of yours?

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The latest news from the Tour de France are a very bad sign for cyclism and for sport.

To recap:

- the former leader of the Tour was found positive to a banned drug- the two major german TV Stations immediately stop to broadcast the race- the new hero of the Tour, and the favourite racer at the beginning of the race, was found positive to testosterone

All this in a race who claimed to be the cleanest one.Most of the sponsors will probably withdraw their money for the next season.

Is this story limited to cyclism?I'm afraid not. And if I was a marketing manager who put money in sport events I would worry about it.Who can reassure me that my brand is not linked to a doped athlete?How badly my brand can be hurt by such a correlation?

If you were is such a tricky situation, how would you react?Withdraw?Resist?

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Few weeks ago, I made a post about the Guillaume Prébois, the journalist running the his own Tour the France under medical control in clean condition.

The Tour organization has made a statement to fight against any form of doping and to stay a clean race and banning cyclists who were caught doping or under trial for doping.A clear marketing move to retain sponsors, sell the race to the TV Stations.

But yesterday something went broken.

A German cyclist has been found positive to an antidoping control on June 8, well before the Tour, but he was in the race until three days ago.

The two major German Television, ZDF and ARD, decided to stop to broadcast the Tour.Nikolaus Brender, from ZDF on behalf of the two TV channels, said: "We cannot air an event with athlets and teams that may be using drugs. We want to show that we can sustain the movement if and only if it is clean. And this is a message for all the other sports, too."

This is a move that should make all the marketers to think about how the sponsorship in sport events are a delicate topic, how is important to carefully choose the sport and the face to marry your brand.

The fastest is not always the best.The honest, yes.At least for your brand.

I begin today a new series about awful ads from the Italian market.I've noticed that the qualitative level of advertising in Italy is rather poor.Who's to blame for?

Agencies are not brave enough to propose bold creative execution. How many times I was in creative presentation where the agency apologize for a proposing something out of the box.

And how many times I've heard clients doing the job of the creative dept. Getting into meeting with handwritten papers with layout and claim already fixed in their mind. The first question to ask for should have been: are you paid for that? Are you a marketing manager (or a product manager ) or you work for the agency? Who does pay for you salary?

Well, to tell the truth, there are the international creative execution to mess the situation further. Those beautiful ads where the local environment is passed by. How many issues this approach has created to companies and agencies?

But let's go the winner for this week.

I do not know what's your knowledge of sailing and winds. But indeed you know that waves go in the wind direction as well as you may konw that the America's Cup boats do not sail with wind over the 18/20 knots.

The Italian watch makers, Sector, defied the law of nature and the rules of the America's Cup in just one ad:

the boat is sailing under a gennaker with backwind but against the waves

the waves are for a very strong sea, well over the regatta rules and the chance of the boat to float

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Yesterday evening, the Rolling Stones were on stage here in Rome.As wrote in one of the previous post, I had an All access pass and, indeed, got to the concert.After two hours of a flood of music, the Stones marked again the huge difference between the great rock and roll bands and most of wannabe music heroes of today.

This short video is a 1,44 minute video dedicated to Lewis Green, who made a comment saying "Start me up".Even if a couple of days late, this is to celebrate the achievement of 1.000 comments on his blog.Enjoy, man.

The second video is the tribute paid to Keith Richards. His guitar was the opening of all the songs.He also sang a blues with Ron Wood at the acoustic guitar.Rock on ,man.

Friday, July 06, 2007

MPAA in its war against illegal download has finally taken the boldest move possible:

"has launched a site called MiiVi that's dedicated to busting those that are both in the process of downloading copyrighted content, as well as those that have already engaged in the illicit act. Unbeknownst to download pirates who think MiiVi is a legitimate site, the destination allows users to download whole movies. It also features a downloadable app soliciting "fast and easy downloading all in one great site."

Now, these guys seem to live at the Flinstones age.Not only, they are not able to find new business model but spend money and time to try to trick the web.And get eventually discovered in a couple of months.Well done, guys.If I was in the industry and pay for your salary, I would fire you.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Well, tags and tagging may be a little boring. We do all our best to avoid e -mails saying deliver to 100 people or you got headache for a weak!But I have to admit that this is a little different as it make you write something more about yourself. Yes, we do write something about ourselves everyday with our posts and comments. And, lately, I 've seen most of us to turn on a more personal mode.

Anyway, here are Random Things About Me:

I love dogs, sometimes more than humans

I love Pinot Noir Burgundy stile

I love modern art

I have an All Access pass for the Rolling Stones concert in Rome of tomorrow

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Eni, the Italian petrol company, has a new dress code: until September no jacket and tie.The reason: 9% of saving in electricity and CO2 emission for each centigrade of air conditioning.The goal: the perception that everyone of us, from the single person to the big company, can do something real for the environment.The result: a great pr activity that goes along with the other activity named 30% - 24 practical suggestions to save energy, money and the environment.